Deborah Austin-Ford (letter, April 9) asks what Martin Luther King‘s family would think of the choice of Van Jones as the annual King lecturer at Siena College. While the family's opinion would be of interest, we could turn to what King scholars might say and, even better, to King's own words.
Austin-Ford writes that Jones signed a 911truth.org petition and focuses attention on why communities of color are more likely to suffer environmental degradation and harm than white communities.
On Jones' alleged “socialism,” to this day, some accuse or disparage King for having been a “communist,” largely because he spoke out against U.S. foreign policy on Vietnam and Latin America. King gave many speeches in which he criticized America for its hypocrisy of supporting undemocratic regimes and its seeming pursuit of profit.
The head of the U.S. State Department’s Latin American and Caribbean will resign this summer.
Arturo Valenzuela announced he will leave his post of Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs to return to Georgetown University, where he taught before his appointment by Barack Obama in 2009.
The United States currently doesn’t have ambassadors in Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. There are only rudimentary diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Phi Beta Iota: As with Anne Marie Slaughter, he no doubt has a two-year limit or he loses tenure. It does not really matter who is in the office. Those of us who care about the Caribbean, Central, and South America have known since 2008 that there is no difference between the policies or lack thereof of the Bush-Cheney Administration, and those of the Obama-Clinton Administration. When Huge Chavez handed Barack Obama a copy of Open Veins of Latin America–Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent it became the duty of every person of integrity to read that book. Evidently Barack Obama chose not to read it, and just as he misled all US citizens into thinking that he represented change, so also has he failed the entire Southern Hemisphere.
In the aftermath of Fukushima, 50 Laureates of the Right Livelihood Award and members of the World Future Council demanded in a joint statement a global nuclear phase out.
“Nuclear power is neither the answer to modern energy problems nor a panacea for climate change challenges. There is no solution of problems by creating more problems,” states the declaration, issued by experts, activists, politicians, clergy, entrepreneurs and scientists from 26 countries.
Click here to read the full statement and to see the list of signees.
Phi Beta Iota: Buckminster Fuller had it right. Infinite free (renewable) energy is achievable, and the foundation for everything else. That is what the anthrosphere needs, and that is what would make the anthrosphere naturally self-sustaining [it would also have extraordinary impact on water immediately and waste vaporation over time].
Bert Laden was buried at sea within 24 hours of being gunned down in what was probably a CIA safehouse set up with help from Blackwater. Claims by the White House and CIA that DNA confirmation of his identity are bogus.
DNA tests take 3-10 days to run and are not something that can be done in flight or at sea.
Hosted in the beautiful city of Berlin, Re:publica 2011 is Germany's largest annual conference on blogs, new media and the digital society, drawing thousands of participants from across the world for three days of exciting conversations and presentations. The conference venue was truly a spectacular one and while conference presentations are typically limited to 10-20 minutes, the organizers gave us an hour to share our stories. So I'm posting the video of my presentation below for anyone interested in learning more about new media, crowdsourcing, crisis mapping, live maps, crisis response, civil resistance, digital activism and check-in's. I draw on my experience with Ushahidi and the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF) and share examples from Kenya, Haiti, Libya, Japan, the US and Egypt to illustrate how live maps can change the world.
Last Saturday's issue of Barron's ran a cover story on the deficit and their own take on how to address it. In contrast to the recent recommendations from President Obama and the House Republicans, defense was actually “on the table,” not “at” it. In the absence of any adult thinking on the deficit since the Deficit Commission in December, Barron's addresses a void that remains vast and empty in Congress and the Executive branch. The article puts on the table a defense recommendation — which I urged to them — that goes significantly deeper than even the Deficit Commission's — in truth fuzzy — recommendation on “security” spending.
Almost immediately, Forbes published at its website a related piece on defense spending and The Pentagon Labyrinth that contains some interesting private sector views on how the public might be beginning to perceive the current size of the defense budget and condition of our armed forces: note the references to “defense entitlement,” “defense bubble,” and “parade ground military.” It would seem that the paradigm is changing, at least outside Washington DC. (If you think that the recent killing of bin Laden proves the “parade ground” moniker wrong, I urge you to read the introduction essay in The Pentagon Labyrinth: “Why Is This Handbook Necessay?“.
Grow Up, Guys!
By GENE EPSTEIN
Barron's Cover SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 2011
While the President and GOP sling mud at each other, the debt crisis is growing. Barron's offers some tough-but necessary-ways to alleviate it.
Phi Beta Iota: It is possible to eliminate the deficit by making Medicare prices honest and stopping the borrowing of money for corporate pork that feeds political pork. It is possible to eliminate personal income taxes by adopting the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax, which actually produces a great deal more revenue which is desperately needed to bail out the equally irresponsible state governments and pension funds (both government and corporate). America is hosed. It is not possible to “reset” until Washington can combine intelligence and integrity, and that may require a public revolt on both taxes and the fraudulent corrupt Electoral System that keeps the two-party tyranny in a position to continue looting the Commonwealth.
Roy Presson, with his daughters Catherine, left, and Amanda, looking out at their flooded 2,400-acre farm on Tuesday in Wyatt, Mo
SIKESTON, MO. — With a rapid series of explosions late Monday that could be felt for miles through the Missouri soil, the Army Corps of Engineers successfully blew out some 11,000 feet of Mississippi River levee, taking dangerous pressure off the river above.
. . . . . .
For the people responsible for trying to manage the unmanageable river, each success is replaced by new worries.
“We’re just at the beginning of the beginning,” said Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers and president of the Mississippi River Commission.
Phi Beta Iota: Severe weather is an act of man, not God. Between paving over the wetlands and the many contributing factors to environmental degradation, the Earth's natural systems have been distorted to yield increasingly “unmanageable” conditions.
